city-hall-community
FUNDS, SAMLL GRANTS, CONNECTIONS, PERMEABILITY
Vancouver is a creative community. Design has to be successful in dealing with this essential urban element. In order for such things to happen it is essential that a fully participatory environment needs to exist. We explore all options with schools, community groups, seniors citizens and residents. We produce workshops that use mapping and charettes to draw the best form the community. This includes a liveable laneway project, the UBC urban engagement work, RPSC communty landscape and city planning advocacy, affordable housing.
permeability
CITIZENS, COMMUNITY PUBLIC PLACE
A community such as ours has built in and inherent conflicts and contradictions encountered in everyday life. Is the public really independent in this heavily protocolled environment. As more and more public space migrates into places of commerce and the anchors that give meaning to the urban realm we are no longer in containers of public space but places of spectacle. Parks and open spaces have specific uses and at present some designs do not promote or encourage unstructured spontaneous gatherings. The public space has to effortlessly absorb people and events and be highly visible magnets for people and activities. The environmental impact of the evolution of the city in the public realm is realized upon us and acts as over-scaled devises. These shaft features, dominate the urban landscape atop the complexity of a rather ordinary public. Rather than taking advantage of the city poetic metaphors in a successful and homogenous consequence, the public is confused in the internal shifts and functions. These projects can be designed better by artfully drawing the eye down familiar diagonal interventions to avoid the dreaded ‘public hearing’ syndrome. The question is how do we make the process of public input more meaningful.
Real sense of responsibility towards local communities and civic space.
community
COMPREHENSIBILITY and COHERENCE
Usually urban projects have a multitude of needs and programing restraints. That is why it is essential to orient and simplify these ideas to the public in the best possible way. This urban design needs to be ‘legible’, easily read and remembered in its geometric configuration and internal logic.